Saturday, December 29, 2012

The Moorfield Storey Institute regularly gives micro-loans to individuals developing their businesses in the developing world. We have made loans in Ecuador, Benin, Tajikistan, Zambia, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Mongolia, Azerbaijan, and El Salvador. The Institute is entirely funded by donations from its staff, friends and from proceeds from sales at our book service,Fr33minds.com.

Our most recent loan is to Eris Rodolfo in El Salvador. Eris runs a bookstore and general store from the same premises. He lives with his in-laws, his wife, and two children, 7 and 15. He has one employee and has been in business for three years. He wishes to purchase notebooks and books for the new school term as well a products such as cooking oil, and grains. He is trying to expand his inventory so as to improve his economic position.

The Storey Institute is a 501(c)3 organization. Your donations are critical. Most of the Institute's income comes from the staff, who donate their time and resources. In addition to running the Adam Smith Benevolent Fund, the outlet for our charitable giving, we operate Cobden Press, which publishes books of interest to classical liberals and libertarians. We distribute books at discounted prices through Fr33minds.com and also contribute a regular column to Huffington Post. At this time, due to the lingering recession sales have been slow at Fr33minds.

The Institute is having a very rough time financially. Your donations are tax deductible and are especially needed at this time. To make a donation just go here.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

"
I previously argued that international data
generally shows increased gun ownership does not cause increased numbers of
homicides. Sweden and Switzerland have relatively high gun ownership rates with
very low homicide rates. South Africa has very low gun ownership but high
homicide numbers. I concluded: “While it would be stupid to say that gun ownership is the only factor
influencing homicide rates, it would be even more stupid to claim that the
numbers show that gun ownership increases homicides. The evidence does NOT
support that when we look at international data.”

What about the 50 states? Homicide rates were easy to
find, thanks to the Census Bureau. However, determining gun rates is a bit
difficult. I use two different sets of figures for this. One set purports to
show the percentage of residents who own guns and is from USLiberals.about.com;
the other was compiled by The Daily Beast, using the number of background
checks, per 100,000 people, performed by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal
Background Check System, used before a gun is legally sold to someone by any
firearms dealer.

Does high gun ownership translate into high homicides rates? The ten states
with the highest ownership rates were Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, South Dakota,
West Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Idaho, Alabama and North Dakota. All of
them have ownership rates between 50% and 60%. The average homicide rate for
these 10 states is 4.07, which is below the national average of 5.1, according
to the Census Bureau.

The ten states with the lowest percentage of gun ownership
were Florida, Maryland, California, Illinois, New York, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Hawaii. The average homicide rate in
theses states is 4.52, which is lower than the national average, but higher
than the top 10 gun-owning states.

The Daily Beast says the background check rate, per 100,000 people, is the best
data we have on gun ownership, but admits that for Kentucky the numbers are all
out of whack, due to monthly background checks there. If we use this data—excluding
Kentucky—the top ten gun-friendly states are Montana, North Dakota, West
Virginia, Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and
Alabama. For these top 10 gun-friendly states, the homicide rate averages 3.6
per 100,000, again well below the national average of 5.1.

With this data, the 10 least gun-friendly states would be New Jersey, Hawaii,
New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, California, Massachusetts, Delaware, Florida
and Michigan. These 10 states had an average homicide rate of 4.47. This is
again lower than the national average—though not as significantly as before—but
once again, well above the 10 states that are most gun friendly.

If we look at the ten states with the lowest homicide rates (NH, VT, IA, UT,
ID, MN, HI, ND, WY, ME), averaging 1.57, we find they average 7298 background
checks per 100,000 people. The ten most deadly states, in terms of murders,
averaging 7.96, (LA, NM, IL, MD, TN, AL, MS, SC, MO, OK) have homicide rates
significantly higher and they have an average of 6,990 background checks per
100,000.

If we look at the ten least murderous states, we see their gun-ownership rate
is 41.34% of their populations. But, the most deadly states have ownership
rates of 39.82%

Hawaii ranks dead last in terms of gun ownership (6.7%)
yet six other states have lower homicide rates and average gun ownership rates
more than six times higher (average 42.63%). Louisiana is 1st in
homicide rates (12.3) and 13th in gun-ownership rates. The twelve
states with more guns per capita have a significantly lower homicide rate, 3.96.

In second place, in terms of homicide rates, is New Mexico (10), yet it ranks
32nd in gun ownership. Illinois is in third place, in regards to
homicides (8.4), but in 44th place in regards to gun ownership.

In conclusion, allow me to
rephrase what I said before: “While it would be stupid to say that gun ownership
is the only factor influencing homicide rates, it would be even more stupid to
claim that the numbers show that gun ownership increases homicides. The
evidence does NOT support that when we look at national data.”I previously argued that international data
generally shows increased gun ownership does not cause increased numbers of
homicides. Sweden and Switzerland have relatively high gun ownership rates with
very low homicide rates. South Africa has very low gun ownership but high
homicide numbers. I concluded: “While it would be stupid to say that gun ownership is the only factor
influencing homicide rates, it would be even more stupid to claim that the
numbers show that gun ownership increases homicides. The evidence does NOT
support that when we look at international data.”

Monday, December 17, 2012

England’s
left-of-center Guardian newspaper has charted gun ownership in over 170
countries. They use data from the Small Arms Survey, which looks at private
ownership of guns in various nations. The Guardian then compares firearm
ownership to homicide rates—though they only look at homicides with firearms,
not the total homicide rate.

Their
data shows the United States has 88.8 guns for every 100 people, with a firearm
homicide rate by firearm of 2.97 per 100,000 people. The unspoken theory is
that reduced ownership of firearms results in fewer murders by firearms—whether
it results in more murders by other means is not addressed. (Note: all gun
ownership numbers are per 100 people, while homicide rates are per 100,000.)

How
does gun ownership correlate with murder by firearms internationally? Argentina is at 3.02, with only 10.2 firearms per 100. The Bahamas has gun
ownership of only 5.3, but has 15.37 firearm homicides. Bangladesh has gun
ownership below 0.5, yet their death rate by firearms is still 1.1. In Barbados,
gun ownership is only 7.8, but the homicide rate is 2.99. In Belize there is only
1 firearm for every ten people, yet the firearm homicide rate is 21.82.

Canada
has a relatively high fire ownership rate (30.8), yet a low death-by-firearm
rate (0.51). Chile has 10.7 weapons per 100 people, yet a firearm homicide rate
of 2.16 per 100,000. Colombia has only 5.9 guns per 100 people, yet the firearm
homicide rate is 27.09. Costa Rica has a firearm homicide rate of 4.59, well
above the US, but a gun ownership rate of 9.9 per 100, well below the US.
Croatia and Cyprus have relatively high gun ownership rates (21.7 and 36.4
respectively), but relatively low firearm homicide rates: 0.39 and 0.46.

Ecuador
has an ownership rate of just 1.3, but the firearm homicide rate is more than
four times higher than the United States;—12.73. In El Salvador the ownership
rate is just 5.8, but the firearm homicide rate is 39.9. Finland and France
both have relatively high gun ownership rates by international standards, and
very low firearm homicide rates: 0.45 and 0.06. Ditto for Germany with 30.3
firearms per 100, but a firearm homicide rate of 0.19.The same is true for
Greece with 22.5, but 0.26 firearm homicides.

New
Zealand has a firearm ownership rate of 22.6 per 100, but the homicide rate is
only 0.16. In contrast, Nicaragua has only 7.7 guns per 100, yet the firearm
homicide rate is 5.92. In Norway, 31.3 weapons per 100
people are in private hands, yet the homicide rate by firearms is just 0.05. Panama has a firearm
ownership rate well below the US, 21.7%, but a homicide rate well above the US;
16.18. In Serbia, 37.8 people per 100 have a firearm, but the homicide rate is
0.46. South Africa has only 12.7 guns per 100 people but 17.03 is the firearm
homicide rate. Sweden and Switzerland have relatively high gun ownership rates—31.6
and 45.7—and have relatively low firearm homicide rates—0.41 and 0.77.

The
Guardian’s report is skewed, because it only looks at homicides by firearms,
instead of total homicides from all causes. We see that some nations have very
low rates of gun ownership, yet high rates of murder by firearm. Other
countries have relatively high rates of gun ownership, yet very low rates of
firearm related homicides.

So, how do international homicides rates, from all causes, compare with the presence of guns? I took the
numbers the Guardian published, regarding the presence of guns in a society and
compared them to homicide rates per country. When I combined the two listsm
I had data for 169 nations.

The 10 nations with the
highest number of privately-owned guns averaged 44.14 firearms per 100
population. Their homicide rate per 100,000 population averaged 2.41. The 10
nations with lowest firearm ownership rates had only 0.44 firearms per 100
population but their homicide rate was 8.96. While the top 10 gun-owning countries
have ownership rates 10 times higher than the 10 least armed nations, their
homicide rate is 4 times lower. Out of the 169 nations surveyed here, the United States is first in gun ownership, but 86 of these nations have homicides rates higher than the United States.

I then looked at the 25
nations with the highest ownership of guns, versus the 25 with the lowest. The
top 25 nations had 33.47 weapons per 100 people with a homicide rate of 1.7 per
100,000 people. The 25 least-armed nations had 0.64 guns per 100 people with a
homicide rate of 10.45—more than five times as deadly as the 25 nations with
the most guns.

Next, I looked at the
50 nations with the highest number of guns in comparison with the 50 with the
lowest. The top 50 averaged 24.79 weapons, with a homicide rate
of 5.88. In comparison, the 50 least-armed nations averaged 1.01 firearms per
100 with a homicide rate of 12.17—still more than double their more heavily armed
counterparts.

I then looked at
nations with 40 or more guns per 100 people. There are 4 such countries (US,
Switzerland, Finland, and Yemen). They average 58.64 firearms per 100 people,
with an average homicide rate of 2.85.

Next I took all nations
in 30-39% range of gun ownership. There are 12 such nations with an average
ownership rate of 32.59 per 100, and an average homicide rate of just 1.48 per
100,000. A further 11 nations have gun ownership rates between 20-29%; their
average homicide rate is 3.39. There are 34 nations with between 10 and 19 guns
per 100 people; averaging 14.2 guns per 100 with a homicide rate of 9.9. 108
nations have gun ownership rates below 10 per 100 people, averaging 3.53
firearms per 100, they also average 12.92 homicides per 100,000.

The trend seems to be
that nations with lower homicide rates have a higher proliferation of guns—the
reverse of what is often claimed in the media.

We can also come at
this by viewing homicide rates first. The 10 nations with the highest
homicide rates in the world, averaging 50.67 per 100,000, have 6.84 guns per
100 people. The ten nations with the lowest homicide rates—just 0.5 per
100,000—have gun rates of 20.39 per 100 people. While the “armed” nations
have more than triple the number of privately-held firearms, their homicides
rates are just 1/100th those found in the 10 least-armed nations.

The 25 most deadly
nations—with an average of 39.88 homicides per 100,000—have a gun proliferation
rate 4.89 per 100. The 25 least deadly nations —0.77 per 100,000—have guns
rates of 17.43 per 100.

While it would be
stupid to say that gun ownership is the only factor influencing homicide rates,
it would be even more stupid to claim that the numbers show that gun ownership
increases homicides. The evidence does NOT support that when we look at international
data.